


What Is Dead May Never Die

by antigones



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Diaspora, Exile, F/M, Gen, Identity, Rule 63, Thea Greyjoy, female!Theon, girl!theon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1975341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigones/pseuds/antigones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thea Greyjoy was taken from her father's home as a hostage to Winterfell at the scant age of nine years old. She grows up a smirking and cynical young woman. Sadness and bitterness characterize her life, but there is one person who risks making her happy: Robb Stark. But will Robb take the ultimate risk of loving a woman in exile, who is sworn not to Winterfell, but to the sea she hasn't seen in years? Will Thea sacrifice the sea for him? (girl!Theon/Robb Stark)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Washed Ashore

**Author's Note:**

> The experience of exile can be related to a traumatic event: in some cases, a violent action directed at the person and, in others, an indirect violence originated in the sudden and radical transformation of the surrounding world and the expectations of ordinary life. There is a traumatic dimension attached to the break with the known localities of the subject and in the experience of displacement in the land of asylum. Under these circumstances, the world of the present is transformed into something foreign and menacing, while the world of the past, the one before the upheaval, becomes an object of the imagination or an otherness the exile cannot recover. These aspects underlining the separation from the home determine the character of the experience of exile as one of personal devastation and loss of community.
> 
> Luis Torres, “Exile and Community”

Thea was nine when she first left the sea and landed on green ground.

The waves were crashing against the rocky banks of the Stony Shore, foam audibly seething on their crests. Sea gulls circled overhead, squawking.  The salt smells of the sea thickened the air. The sky was a vast expanse of blue and the sun smiled mockingly down on them. It was better than the Storm God’s wrath. _The sea does not forgive. The sea does not forget. What is dead may never die._

The Northmen escorted Thea out of the ship. A slim, dark-haired girl of nine years, there was an intractable glumness on her face, a brooding and near cynicism that misfit her youngness and girlhood. As a child, she should have been playing, frolicking, marveling at the world around her in her seemingly perpetual innocence. But innocence was frayed thin, for there had just been a war, and Thea’s father had lost it. She was the prize and booty, the goods the victors took home. She was the hostage, and the look on her face told of an understanding that far surpassed her young years.

The Northmen did not help. Even though she was just a child, and just a girl at that, they formed a guarded bloc against her. If she had been shorter, she’d have only seen their shields and armor, but she was a tall girl, so she saw the sky and the green and the seagulls circling overhead. She had never seen greener land in her life.

She voiced this out loud. “Is all land in the North so _green_?”

A handsome man with close-cropped brown hair turned to her. He had been kind to Thea on her journey, gifted her with pocket sweets and politely talked to her when everyone else preferred to pretend as if she did not exist. He smiled now, but even Thea knew that a smiling captor could still run a sword through her if her father showed the slightest pretense towards rebellion. What mattered wasn’t their smiles, but the power they held over her. _I’ll make sure not to forget,_ she silently vowed. Yet, the sweets had tasted so good, and his kindness had felt even better to a girl-child taken from her family and voyaging on sea to a new, strange land.

“Not all of it,” said Robett Glover. His shield was a raised, silver-clad fist in the sky against a background of red. _Pretentious and weak. What is silver to iron?_ “When you go up towards the Wall, it gets colder and snowier and the Haunted Forest is said to be barren. But that’s farther north than our lands. Here is the greenest you’ll find in the North, greener than anywhere on Pyke for certain.”

The Greyjoy girl nodded, sullen. Throughout the voyage, she had remained quiet and not asked Glover or anyone else the most basic questions expected from children seized by strangers. _Where are you taking me? Where am I going? Will I ever see my family again? When can I go back? Why can’t I go back? Why is this happening?_

Her silence disturbed the Northern lord, but he dared not say it out loud.

She let herself indulge in one question. “Where am I going now?”

“Winterfell.”

Her lips thinned and for a moment Lord Glover thought she might cry. “Will I ever see the sea again?”

Lord Glover parted his lips to answer, but he realized that the Greyjoy girl wasn’t looking for a genuine response or explanation. After all, how did you answer to a child of nine taken prisoner for the transgressions of her father?

He said simply, “I know not, my lady.”

And as she walked away from the sand and onto the green grass, as the sea stench faded and the sea gulls’ voices dwindled in the distance, she allowed herself to have her first cry since she boarded ship on Pyke. And she tasted salt on her lips.

 

-

 

They reached Winterfell at nightfall.

There were celebrations, worried women congratulating their men on coming back home alive and breathing sighs of relief, the younger boys embracing their fathers and pressing them for details of their exploits. Thea stood to the side, confused and sullen and never having felt more out of place in her life. _I am on the losing side and my people are not here._

Lord Stark was her escort. At Winterfell, he had to finally face the girl he’d ignored the entire way from Pyke to the Stony Shore. They called Eddard Stark a brave man for singly leading the Northmen into battle against her father’s men and decisively winning the war, but Thea thought him craven for refusing to look a girl who was not yet ten in the eye.

Eddard Stark was younger than her father, but older than her dead brothers. He had cool grey eyes and an air of solid authority. He appeared to be constantly frowning in seeming anticipation for the winter referred to in his house words. Even so, he was less intimidating than Thea’s father.

He turned those cool grey eyes on her now. He did not trouble to bend down to meet her eye level. Thea was tall for her age, but Lord Stark was much taller. His perpetual frown was turned downwards, tinged with what could’ve been distress. The lines buried deep in his forehead made his otherwise young face look ancient.

“I trust you were not in want of anything on the journey.”

“I was fine.” Her voice was a faint whisper. She silently cursed herself for sounding so weak in front of her captor. _Next time will be better._

“I am glad of that,” he said, but there was no greater displeasure on his face, and he seemed distracted.

_He does not want to deal with me,_ she realized. _I am a burden, a liability, a girl he’d hate to kill if Balon raised his banners again._

But would he flinch away from the deed? Eddard Stark was battle-hardened, practical, and above all dutiful to his king. She doubted she’d survive if her father rebelled again.

“Your room is on the second floor of the Great Keep,” Lord Eddard was saying. _You mean my prison._ “It is in the same corridor as that of my daughters.”

Thea raised her eyebrows at that. “You have daughters?”

“Yes.” A tiny smile played on Lord Stark’s lips. Thinking of them clearly made him happy. _They will be joyful to see their father return home. Rodrik and Maron never made it home._ Neither would she, it seemed like.“I have two, Sansa and Arya. Arya was born but a few months ago. You will come to know them during your stay here.”

Did Lord Stark mean for Sansa and Arya Stark to be Thea’s playmates? He was clearly more removed from reality than Thea had initially anticipated. She wondered, standing outside in the windy summer night, if Eddard Stark would be honest with her. If he’d name this farce as what it was, if he’d drop the empty formalities and address her as a traitor’s daughter, if he’d lock her in a cellar because she was a prisoner in Winterfell. _‘Twould be better that way, if he treated me like a hostage and prisoner and not a third daughter._

_Look me in the eye, you craven. Look at me._

As if hearing her thoughts, Lord Stark finally looked Thea in the eye. “You will not be in want of anything, I promise you. I will treat you fairly and justly, as if you were my ward. You will attend the same lessons as my daughters, and we have tailors to make your clothing. You will eat from my family’s table.” Thea could scarce believe it. Her eyes remained transfixed on Lord Stark’s, craven no more, but no sound emanated from her wordless lips. “There is a godswood and sept, if you crave worship.”

Thea found her voice. “I worship the Drowned God, my lord.”

Lord Stark’s face looked grave. “Very well.” He nodded at one of his men. “Escort Lady Greyjoy upstairs, Desmond.” He gave orders for two other men to bring up her belongings, a scant pack of some clothes, letters, a couple of books, and memorabilia. What she’d really wanted to bring was her longbow, but that was forbidden onboard. She also knew the Northmen had scoured her belongings clean before taking it on the ship, and she wondered what remained, if the breeches and jerkin she liked to wear were in the same condition as she’d left them in, if they’d pulled it out and laughed at what she wore or cursed her for absurdity, if that accounted for the queer looks the Stark guardsmen gave her even now. She set her mouth in a flat line and did not flinch as the guardsman led her to her room. _I will not be cowed._

Lord Stark had clearly meant to remove her from the festivity in the Great Hall, whether out of sensitivity or contempt, she knew not. But it made no matter because she had no desire to join the Northmen at their feast and endure their scrutinizing glare. Her room was made entirely of stone, but it was uncannily warm and insulated. Myrish carpets were laid out on the floor and tapestries depicting various legendary scenes draped the hard, grey walls. But the tapestries were colored green and white, showed snow and grass, all sights and stories on land. Not one of them showed the sea.

Her bed was positioned besides the window. The window was a huge, semi-oval thing, big enough for her to fit through if she bent her shoulders a little. She stared below at the grounds, blanketed in darkness. What would happen if she jumped out? It was not impossible to scale the wall from her window. She was only on the second story. But where would she go after that?

A maid entered her room once to bring her food, but after pushing a few mutton chops around, Thea lost her appetite. She had never been so far from the sea in her life. Granted, the sights were to be a change from what she knew, but even the smells were drastically different. Winterfell smelled woody, almost dewy, _green_. Opening the window did not help. Cool streams of air whipped through her dark hair, but no salt lingered on the wind.

It unsettled her, this distance from the sea, and she spent the night sitting upright on the bed, her arms wrapped tightly across her shoulders, holding herself together. She didn’t sleep a blink until the sun was rising in the sky.

 

-

 

Thea didn’t meet the Starks until two days after her arrival. The following days were busy with the aftermath of war and the spoils of victory, the celebration of the smallfolk and lordly meetings putting the people and places disturbed by war to rights. Thea dared not come out of her room lest the Northerners lynch her for being Ironborn in their zeal. Their festivity was neverending and her skin crawled when she heard their cheers and laughter through the thick walls of her prison-like bedroom. _All joy bought from the blood and grief of the Ironborn._

She wondered if Lord Stark and the rest had forgotten her, but the meals were unfailingly sent to her room by the maid three times a day. The maid was a plain, middle-aged woman with a hefty bosom. Her eyes were flinty and she hastily dumped the tray of food at Thea’s door like it was the most cursory task in the world. Lord Stark had probably instructed her to be kind, for she held her tongue at least. Thea never inquired for her name, wondering since when mere servingwomen could make her feel so cowed and powerless.

The window beckoned to her, day and night.

On the third day, she ventured outside of her room. She decided to use the door, not the window. Bannermen were leaving more and more by the hour. She could see their banners and horses from her window and had taken a habit to watching them, speculating which one of them had loosed his arrows on Rodrik and Maron. One time an armored lesser lord spotted her and pointed, and she didn’t go by the window again for the next three hours.

The Northmen had no love for the Ironborn. Even before Balon’s rebellion, the reaving, raping and raiding were fresh in the memory of the Mormonts and the Mallisters, and the men were emboldened by their victory in battle, drunk on the blood they’d claimed in this war. Trekking outside her room meant a lynching or worst, which was why Lord Stark did not send for her and a guardsman stood outside her room at alternating hours. Thea had not inquired for his name either, greeting him with silent disdain whenever she was forced to face him.

It was the early hours of the morning and there was no guard stationed outside her door. Thea was dressed in breeches and a tunic, unladylike clothes, but they made her nimbler and quicker than the heavy dresses she’d brought to Winterfell. The breeches allowed her freedom to move her legs and the tunic was light and comfortable. If a vicious Northman put his hands on her, she’d be able to escape with quickness and ease.

She explored the floor. She glimpsed into the adjoining bedrooms. They had the appearance of nurseries, and Thea wondered if these were the rooms of Lord Stark’s daughters. _Does he think me an infant?_ Surely Thea was too old to befriend infants and toddlers, much less those belonging to the Stark family. _Too Ironborn for that._

Lord Stark’s intentions still mystified her. She had paced back and forth in her prison, trying to understand what was going to happen, what he was doing with her, what his words meant. But all sense and reason eluded her and she was inevitably seized by anxiety and alternating depressive moods. It was the worst when she thought of how she’d never see the sea again. Winterfell was so far away from the ocean, the farthest she’d ever been from the ocean. She was possessed by panic at the thought and her cries and gasps had been so loud that the guard stationed outside her door burst in and asked, “My lady?” in dire concern, but she moved back and tripped, falling onto the floor in her effort to get away from him. She scowled, her face sticky with tears, aggrieved and humiliated he’d seen her like this.

He was a funny guard, much older than her with russet hair and a mustache. His concern for her had been surprising, because before he had treated her with sole indifference, the stigma and disgrace of _hostage, prisoner, Greyjoy_ underlying it. Thea understood that this was to be her future as Lord Eddard Stark’s so-called ward. Cold people with cold smiles and perfunctory politesse, who would subtly remind her of her inferiority. She would spend the rest of her life second-guessing herself. She was nine years old going on ten and she knew this.

Thea continued to wander the halls in the Great Keep on the second floor, not yet ready to test the stairwell. She was pondering the great stone steps when she felt something brush against her leg and jumped.

A little boy with red hair and stunning blue eyes was staring at her. “Who you?”

Thea hesitated. “I’m Thea Greyjoy,” she said quietly. 

“What you doing here?” The child was elegantly attired in a white doublet and velvet grey surcoat. He had the bluest eyes Thea had ever seen and they were unblinking, penetrating.

Thea laughed, and it was the first bitter laugh she tasted since landing on green ground. It signaled the end of her childhood. “I don’t quite know myself.”

The little boy cocked his head to the side. “Then why you here? In my castle?”

“This is your castle?”

“Yes.” The boy glowed with pride. “My lord father’s castle.”

Thea bit her lip. _This is Eddard Stark’s whelp._ Whatever amusement she felt for the boy’s toddling mannerisms evaporated and she only felt sick, very sick inside. But this was the only individual she’d met at Winterfell in the last three days who was disarmingly honest and sincere. He was the only person she’d met whose eyes were not clouded with judgment, who treated her like an actual person. _That’s because he’s a child. That’s because he doesn’t know any better._ But even children learned hatred at the knees of their mothers, and this lordling had not turned away from her when she revealed her disgraced Ironborn name.

“What’s your name?” she asked the boy.

The little boy straightened his spine. “I am Robb Stark of Winterfell,” he pronounced, saying each word one by one as if he’d rehearsed it. 

She gave a small responding smile, a frayed twist of the lips. But his reciprocating grin beamed with radiance. He was _thrilled_ to have even slightly pleased her.

“Where you from?” he pressed on.

“You know, you ask too many questions for such a little boy.”

He got angry at that. “I am not little!” he cried. “I’m very big.”

Thea drew herself up to her full height. “Well, I’m bigger than you.”

True enough, Robb came up to her shoulders, but he remained undaunted. “I’ll grow bigger soon. That’s what Jory says.”

“Who’s Jory?”

“The cap’n of guards,” the child slurred his words. “The guard. He’s so tall.” Robb raised his hand to show just how tall. “Taller than you even!”

The blue eyes that had left such an impression on her glinted with mischief. Thea was suddenly exhausted. Was this the same guard who stood watch at her door, the same guard who’d escorted her to her prison that first night at Winterfell, the same guard who’d thrown dirty looks at her on the voyage to the Stony Shore?

“I don’t like guards,” proclaimed Thea. “They scare me.”

“They’re supposed to _protect_ you,” affirmed Robb. “At least that’s what my lord father says.”

_Your lord father can be wrong_ , she wanted to say, but she didn’t want word to reach Lord Eddard’s ear and have the whole household know she was poisoning the little heir’s mind this early in her captivity. He was her enemy by all rights, but she felt a budding affection for the little boy. _I only crave company because I’ve been confined in my prison for days_ , she rationalized.

“Why you look so sad?” Robb’s pink lips were pursed in concern, his eyes wide at the notion of her sadness. 

Thea did not think her vulnerability was so apparent. She thought she sported an indifferent disposition. Her forehead crinkled. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do,” said Robb. “You look sad.”

“No, I don’t,” persisted Thea stubbornly. “You can’t tell. You’re only a child.”

Robb stepped back, as if slapped. “Children know things,” he pouted, hurt.

Tenderness unexpectedly swept her heart. “They do,” she conceded. “I’m sorry, Robb. Let’s not talk about my sadness though. It’s not important.”

He sidled up to her. He touched her cheek. “Can I make you happy?”

Her words caught in her throat, but it was useless saying them anyway. The clipped footsteps of a guardsman advanced towards them, and Thea saw his dark russet hair and recognized him as the guard who’d caught her in her fit of hysteria.

“Look, this is him, this is Jory I was telling you about!” Robb started jumping up and down in his excitement.

Jory’s expression was stern, doubtlessly to find the heir of Winterfell in the kraken’s clutches, but he had no choice but to humor the little lord. “Jory, look. I made new friend. Her name is Thea.”

“I didn’t say we were friends,” muttered Thea. 

“Is that so?” Jory said to Robb, but even his tone towards the little lord  failed to be friendly. He nodded curtly at Thea. “Lady Greyjoy, please come with me to your chambers at once.”

He put a protective arm around the five-year-old boy. Robb looked confused, glancing from his new friend to the captain of the guards. Thea sulkily stood up and made a show of stretching her arms. Lord Stark’s men seemed too honorable to manhandle nine-year-old girls and she wanted to make this as difficult as possible for Jory.

“I only wanted a breath of fresh air,” she said nonchalantly. 

Would there come a time when she could converse with a child without being considered a threat to him because of the ignominy of her name and place? _No. You are a hostage. Best get used to it._

She began to walk down the corridor in the direction of her chambers. Jory kept step with her, holding her elbow. They left Robb in the wake of their footsteps, staring at their receding figures in bewilderment.

 

-

 

Robb probably told his father of Jory’s conduct, because she was assigned an older, gentler guard for the rest of her week. And then she wasn’t assigned a guard at all, and she was allowed free movement in the castle, and she broke bread with the Starks for the first time. 

Lady Catelyn was Lord Eddard’s wife, a stately woman with eyes as blue as her firstborn son’s. She nodded warmly at Thea when she joined them for breakfast. “You are welcome to eat at our table, Lady Thea.”

“Thank you.” The girl nodded, not knowing what else to say. 

Arya was still in the cradle and Sansa was a toddling little thing, her coloring the same as her older brother’s, only her hair was redder than even his. Lord Eddard presided over the table, commanding  unspoken respect, but he was familiar with his wife and gentle with his son in ways Balon had never been. Another boy with a long face and dark hair who was the spitting image of Eddard Stark ate with them. Thea would later learn that was Robb’s bastard brother Jon Snow. Lady Catelyn’s eyes were cool on him and she treated Thea better than she did Jon, whom she was loath to even look at. 

Lord Eddard Stark did not break any of his promises. He was a man of honor, Thea learned. Time eroded and the Greyjoy girl became accustomed to her new life in Winterfell. She was well ahead of Sansa in her studies, so she took her lessons with Jon and Robb. Being four and three years older than the boys (though no one really knew Jon’s exact name day), she became impatient and frustrated with the material she was taught, material she’d been taught before. That and more since Rodrik the Reader’s wealth of reading superseded that of Maester Luwin. But surprisingly, Luwin accommodated her and gave her the books she asked for and taught her separately in history, science and literature.

But what she yearned for, what she wanted from the aching limbs of her body was to practice with wooden broadswords and ringing steel in the yard with Jon and Robb. She wanted to join the boys in their training with the master-at-arms. She wanted to shoot the longbow and never miss a target.

She practiced and tussled with Robb and Jon casually. Whenever any of Ned Stark’s whelp mentioned that she was a girl, she shrugged as if it made no matter and said, “So?” and attacked them with broadsword in hand.

She knew the rest of the household thought it unseemly. She was growing older too, years printing their shape on her. She was no longer just a girl, breasts were budding and she was becoming softer where she used to be lank and narrow, but she did not care. Broadswords were nothing, what she really wanted was longbow and steel. One day after a particularly fierce assault on Robb, which left the boy on his knees saying, “I’m dead already! Why are you still attacking! I’m dead, I’m dead!”, Eddard Stark asked for a word with her.

Thea was clad in breeches and tunic, both matted with dirt from where she’d fallen and rolled on the ground. When she first came to Winterfell, she’d been able to look at Lord Eddard Stark in the eye, but now she lowered her eyes in respect of her liege lord. 

“You are quite good with wooden swords, Thea,” commented Lord Eddard.

“I used to play with them all the time at Pyke,” she blurted out.

“Who did you practice with?”

“My sister Asha,” the Greyjoy girl explained. “And sometimes my brother. Maron. But my talent was in the longbow.”  
Ned Stark’s black eyebrows shot upwards. _Is he disgusted or impressed?_ “That’s impressive. What do you think of the boys’ training with Ser Rodrik?”

“I want part in it,” she said bluntly. “I want to practice with steel sword and I want to shoot the longbow. It has been so long since I felt it in my hands. I would like nothing better.”

Lord Eddard nodded reflectively, rubbing his brown beard. Thea waited in anticipation, but when it was clear he was not going to say anything else, she waited to be dismissed. “Thea, come back and fight!” Robb was yelling, and Ned smiled and nodded at Thea, granting her permission to rejoin the boys in their broadsword battles.

The next day, Lord Eddard inducted her in training with Ser Rodrik alongside Robb and Jon. She tried not to gloat at the people scandalized by the notion of putting a weapon in the hostage’s hand. Others still misliked that she was a girl. She simply rolled her eyes at them. _Are all greenlanders so pathetic? Even by their standards, this is not so shocking. Have they never seen a Mormont?_

Ned Stark kept all his promises. The only thing Thea lacked was worship, but you could not worship the Drowned God faraway from sea, not for long. But Eddard Stark had never promised her the sea, he had only promised her the godswood and the sept, and she had need for neither. She grew up an irreverent and agnostic woman, doubt dominating her worldview, even marring Lord Stark’s pithy conceptions of honor.

She knew in the back of her skull that she was still a hostage, she knew it in the deepest recesses of her heart. She knew it from the whispers that trailed her, she knew it in the biting jokes of which she was the butt, and she knew it in the brusqueness people dealt her with. She spent her entire life second-guessing herself. _Did they treat me like that because they genuinely don’t like me or because I’m Lord Balon’s daughter? What did I ever do to them?_

And yet, it became harder to hate the Starks. They treated her like a person, they treated her like a ward fostered in their castle. They honored her with respect she would have never anticipated the day she landed on the Stony Shore so many years ago.It became more and more difficult to remember who they really were, that Lord Stark would slit her throat when Balon rebelled again, that she was a piece of meat to barter in politics and war. She watched Arya and Sansa grow up into spirited young girls. Lady Catelyn taught her wisdom and sewing and even commiserated with her on exile in Winterfell, hailing originally from the Riverlands. “It takes time to become accustomed to this castle, but you have all the time in the world.” And Robb became something indescribable, not a friend, and not quite a brother, but a synthesis of both, and maybe something else, something she could not quite put her finger on, something strange and unnerving. 

She forgot who they really were, her captors and enemies. And in corollary, it became easier to forget who she really was.

It would have been better if the Starks had been cruel with her and kept her locked in a tower or cellar. It would have been easier that way. Instead with their kindness, they destroyed her memory and identity in ways cruelty would have never accomplished. They made her forget who she was. Ned Stark may have given her a longbow, but she only had it because he _allowed_ her to have it. She was forever subjugated to their conditions. As Thea grew older, her pride strengthened. It had smarted so often in her life that it only increased to compensate for the compromises, to protect her against the world that aggressed on her, to proclaim _see, I don’t care what you think._

But that question lingered in the back of her mind, a question that she was not quite ready to confront headlong, because it scared her that much. _Who am I really?_

She tried to keep the memory of her lost homeland alive. She wondered if her father ever thought of her, and she doubted it. But sometimes she pretended because the idea of Eddard Stark supplanting her father was imminent and dangerous. It scared her. She kept an array of seashells on the sill of the window she’d contemplated jumping out of so many years ago. She’d brought them back from Pyke. The shells were eternal. Her body still missed the sea. It was this loneliness and bereavement that drove her to seeking acceptance from the Starks. But what she really wanted was to stretch on the sandy banks and be swept away in the ocean’s icy embrace. She wanted to drown. _What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger._

She waited for the day Robb would learn who she really was, what purpose her so-called wardship actually served, and he would look at her changed. But that day never came, and a tiny sliver of hope leached in.

That little piece of hope devastated whatever last vestiges of life remained to her. It swept over her like the sea, torrential and violent, and washed her anew.

_What is dead may never die, indeed_. 

 


	2. Mind of Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exile is never a state of being satisfied, placid, or secure. Exile, in the words of Wallace Stevens, is “a mind of winter” in which the pathos of summer and autumn as much as the potential of spring are nearby, but unobtainable.
> 
> Edward Said, “Reflections on Exile”

The smiling woman had a longbow in hand and a quiver of arrows slung across her back. She wore roughspun breeches and tunic and hard leather shoes. And of course, she wore her famous smile on her face, a smile that showed she knew the biggest jape in the world, and that the rest of the world was ignorant of it. _That’s because they’re the butt of the joke._

Thea Greyjoy palmed an arrow and strung it on her longbow. She pulled the bow, her eyes parallel her arm, her form wicked, and shot the arrow. It landed straight on the bull’s eye. 

Jon Snow could not bear to see her gloat and with a none too subtle scoff and eye-roll turned away from her, probably searching for his brother Bran, who’d expressed his interest in archery practice earlier that morning at breakfast. 

“Bran should be coming soon. I expect the target free in ten minutes, my lady.”

He said _my lady_ so stiffly and formally, it made the hairs on her skin raise in fury. It had a cold bite to it. Anyone with eyes could see the irony in calling Thea _my lady_. She was decidedly _not_ a lady, drinking and seducing men and wearing unladylike clothes and shooting the longbow. It only widened the rift opened between her and the boys since she’d hit puberty and they’d finally realized she was a woman, pure and simple, not just a female playmate in boy’s clothes. Even worst and more awkwardly, she was a woman who dressed and behaved and acted like a man. That repulsed Jon, she figured, like it did everyone else. Robb still came to her though, still considered her his friend and companion. He was watching her intently now. He’d been watching her too when the arrow loosed from her bow and struck the target. He’d seen this a hundred times before. _And never tires of the sight._

Thea ignored Jon. _The bastard thinks to command me._ The very thought was laughable, but Lord Stark had elevated his bastard son high. _He’d be nigh heir of Winterfell if it weren’t for Robb and Lady Catelyn._ Indeed, Jon was the spitting picture of his father, clever in his studies, well-trained at arms, raised side by side with Robb. She wondered how Lady Catelyn endured the humiliation of seeing the proof of her husband’s infidelity day by day, but Lord Stark for all his talk of honor refused his wife the respite of sending Jon away.

_And then there’s me, of course._ The Ironborn hostage Thea Greyjoy. The girl ward of the Starks. The sullen child raised with the heir of Winterfell and the bastard Jon Snow. Lady Catelyn had a handful, but she was an admirable woman, even though Thea was becoming more and more conscious of her tight lips and the stern blue of her gaze.

Alas, Thea did not live up to Catelyn Stark’s expectations of what a proper young lady should be, but Thea was Ironborn. At least that was what she told herself. _You never saw your lady mother at arms,_ a voice whispered inside her mind. _No,_ she shot back. _But I saw Asha, and I picked up the longbow at Pyke._

She did not lower it now, but continued to barrel the target with arrows. She had ten minutes till Snow came to teach the child how to shoot, though she was sure Bran would learn better if she taught him. She had no desire to sting from the rejection if she asked, so she just shot her last arrow in the target and then walked towards it to pull the arrows out.

She felt Robb’s eyes on her the whole while.

She heard the twigs breaking under his feet as he came near her. “Well-shot, my lady.”

She raised a dark eyebrow at his formal address. _Not you too._ Robb was the only person who’d stayed with her since she’d grown up  (if you could call it that), transitioned from girl to woman, who treated her like the same person. Now he was calling her _my lady_. Was it a reproach or a reminder?

Butthen Thea saw his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. She punched him in the shoulder, but he grabbed her wrist and drew her closer. She could feel the heat emanating from his chest, the hard and sturdy contours of his body. His lips were so pink. She’d never noticed that before. Lightning shot up her arm and she couldn’t think coherently. But the moment was over as soon as it’d started when Bran and Jon came into the courtyard, a bow in the young boy’s arm.

Thea disentangled herself from Robb, moving towards the target.

Jon frowned. “There are still arrows in the target, Thea.”

Thea rolled her eyes. “Well, _I’m sorry_ , mother hen. I’ll take them out.” She nodded at Bran. “Hello, Bran.”

Bran nodded back and smiled. He was a sweet boy, though Thea felt he secretly hated her. But she felt that way with most people in this castle. _Except Robb._ She flitted her gaze to him, but he was no longer looking at her, instead observing his little brother at the bow. Thea still itched to teach Bran how to shoot, but she knew better than to ask. She took out the last arrow and put it in her quiver. She wanted to offer Bran the weaponry, ask him to try it out, but she didn’t want Jon to train his dark, suspicious eyes on her and make her feel like the enemy, so she held her tongue.

Realizing she was disinterested in watching Bran shoot, she left the courtyard and made her way inside the Great Keep. She could feel Robb’s eyes trace her as she exited, but she did not give him the satisfaction of glancing back at him. _He’s been looking at me more and more often, that one._

Thea didn’t know when it started, when Robb turned fifteen or when he turned fourteen. He was getting older by the day, getting harder where he’d been soft, leaner where he’d been thick, losing his baby fat and the innocence that went with it. Thea didn’t know quite what to do about it. _What’s it to me anyway? What can I do about it?_ Only time would tell, so she went to the stables and pulled the bottle of rum out of her knapsack. She’d gotten it off a Lyseni trader who’d come to Winterfell a fortnight ago and she was saving it for the right occasion. _Depression, change, passivity all make for a smashing occasion._

Indeed, Thea was passive to life, even if her involvement in physical action from swordfighting to fucking supposedly indicated otherwise. But she did not know what the future held and she’d been numbed to caring about it. The future was a mist above the sea, mysterious and incomprehensible. She had no ship to sail the waters to see what lay beyond the fog. Her life was subjugated to the whims of everyone but herself, and her choices were limited.

So she drank. 

Her solitude was disrupted by a man coming into the empty lot in the stable she’d chosen for herself. Evening reigned the sky and the dark blue was dimming to black. A presence in the stables that wasn’t a stableboy was sure to draw some attention.

Thea smirked when she saw who it was. “Ser Jory.”

The man disliked her, Thea knew, could hardly stand to look at her. Whether that was because she was a loathsome Ironborn, his sworn enemy on sight, or because she reminded him of his own harsh and shameful conduct when she was first brought to Winterfell, Thea didn’t know. _But really, who keeps a nine-year-old locked up in a room?_

“Lady Greyjoy.” His voice was curt, uncomfortable. He had never been at ease with the Greyjoy girl, House Cassel had lost its sons to the kraken’s rebellion, after all. But this discomfiture had materialized only in recent years when Thea got hips and roamed the courtyards in fitted breeches that showed the shape of her legs, when she’d taken one of his men in the back of one of the smaller courtyards where the guards trained and Ser Jory had caught them in the act. Thea recalled that memory with wicked fondness. Ser Jory had turned darker than his hair and Thea had taken her sweet time lacing up her breeches, knowing he was watching all the while.

She raised her bottle to him now. “Care to join me?” _To times past. To my imprisonment. To my_ wardship _. To our dead brothers._ “It’s only one bottle, but there’s enough for two and maybe one more.”

“It is getting late, my lady.” He did not smile. “You should best go inside.”

Thea eyed him up and down. Even in the dawning darkness, he could see the shimmer in her eyes. She thought she saw him shudder. 

Thea got up, slowly, easily. Her hips swayed as she walked towards him, and she was pleased to see Jory stay stock-still, still as frozen ice.

She paused in front of him and spoke. He could feel her breath on his face. It was sugary sweet like rum. “You know what’s best for me?”

He dared not say a word. Lord Eddard’s men were amusing. They were committed foremost to honor and Thea just loved to test how strong their honor really was. 

“It is not safe for maidens to stay outside after dark,” Jory enunciated.

Thea took a swig of rum. It tasted like the sea. “I’m no maiden. I think you know that, don’t you?” The white of her teeth were visible even in the shadow.

Jory stiffened. _Is it his spine only or is something else getting stiff too?_ “Nevertheless, it’s getting dark and it’s safer to head back inside.”

Thea laughed, throaty and invigorating. She lifted her hand to touch Jory, but then she remembered something. The smile did not leave her face. “You want to keep me safe, don’t you? That’s why you guarded my door when I was a frightened child brought to Winterfell against my will. That’s why you didn’t let me come out. To keep me safe.”

Moonlight filtered in from the open door of the stable and painted the angles of Jory’s face. He was a weak one. Her words did not leave him impervious, and she could see the struggling emotion on his face. “I was following orders.”

She flipped her hair indifferently. The bottle was a weight in her hand. "So you were." She turned her body towards him, her hips lightly pressing against his groin. "Whose orders do you follow now?"

She wondered what would happen if she fucked Jory. She wondered if Robb would ever forgive her. _Probably not. Jory is too much of a father to him, too respected and sacred for Robb to even comprehend this act, much less forgive it._

 Jory's hand came strong on her arm. They'd never been this close since the time he forcibly escorted her to her room after he'd seen her talking to Robb the third day of her captivity. Her flesh sung in his hand. 

“I follow Eddard Stark." He took the bottle from her hand and put it aside. He gently but firmly gripped her by the waist and set her away from him, close to the wall and off to his side.

For the second time in her life, Jory Cassel had caught her off guard. She was surprised by how much she smarted from his rejection. She stared wide-eyed at Jory, smiling audaciously. "Are you gelded? When was the last time you had a woman, Cassel?"

His face was half obscured in shadow, but she saw the look on his face. He was staring at her with intensity, his jaw hard and strong and his thick, dark eyebrows furrowed. To her disappointment, she saw no lust and her jibe appeared to have no effect on him.

Sympathy flickered in his eye. _Spare me your pity!_ she wanted to scream at him, but she bit her lip so hard it bled.

Jory broke his stare and shook his head. His sigh was audible in the near-silence of the stables. “He wouldn’t want this.”

“Who? Lord Eddard?”

“Robb Stark.” 

The Captain of Guards then exited the stables, leaving Thea to stare at his receding shadow.

_How did he know?_

 

-

 

 Thea didn’t finish the bottle of rum. Her head was pounding already and she didn’t want to exacerbate the greensickness that was surely on its way.

She went back inside the Great Keep, crossing the grounds before she got there. On the way, she spied Robb conversing with some men. He bade them goodbye when he saw Thea and ran to catch up with her.

He was out of breath once his shoulder brushed hers. The vein palpitated on his neck, royal blue against fair skin. _This isn’t a boy who’s seen much hardship._ Robb smiled at her, a fountain of happiness, and Thea’s heart was made out of stone, but it melted at the sight.

“Where were you? You disappeared just like that.”

“Nowhere important.”

Thea recalled their little moment in the courtyard together and hoped he wouldn’t flatter himself into thinking _that_ was the reason why she’d disappeared, but she suppressed the frown that threatened to appear on her face. She thought of what Jory had said. _He wouldn’t want this_.

“Where?” He sniffed at her. “Were you in the stables again? You smell of horse. And alcohol.”

Thea rolled her eyes at him. “How did Bran shoot?”

The question brought forth a fresh peal of laughter. “ _Horribly_. I think he’ll get better though with practice. They walked the grounds in silence, when Robb said, “You know, I don’t think Jon is a good instructor for him. Decent, but not _excellent_. Everyone knows the best bowman in this castle is you. . . Or should I say, bow _woman_?”

He was trying to please her. And he was looking at her in keen anticipation like the boy he still was, waiting to see how she’d react. Thea’s heart wrenched.“Bran has Ser Rodrik.”

She quickened her steps to escape him, but he wouldn’t let her go. His legs were longer now, he matched stride for stride, and had no difficulty keeping up with her. Thea was tall for a girl, but Robb was taller than her. His hand found her arm, and his grasp was gentle. She remembered how he’d grabbed her earlier that day and remained still, very still, so she wouldn’t shiver. “Ser Rodrik is not always available, much less for a seven-year-old. You should teach him, Thea. He’d _bloom_.”

Now Thea did allow the frown to breach her lips. She was hardly good with children, and she had a sense Robb wanted something more from her than archery lessons for his little brother.

_The question is, do you want it too?_

She dismissed the offensive thought. Jory’s words reverberated in her mind and her hand clenched into a fist. _I should have fucked him then and there. If I did, I wouldn’t be here contemplating what I do and don’t want with Robb fucking Stark._

“I’ll think about it,” she said thinly, noncommittally. 

Robb beamed and she felt an involuntary flush of gratification. _Woe to the man who can move my emotions thus and with such ease._ “Also, we’re riding out tomorrow at dawn. The guards and Ser Rodrik’s men and my lord father too.”

That puzzled Thea. “Why?”

Robb looked grim, but there was an underlying boyish excitement to him that betrayed his true feelings. “Night’s Watch deserters. They’re to be executed. Do you want to come?”

Given Thea’s frequency in the courtyard and with Ser Rodrik’s men, she had ridden out to see these sights before. Her presence was oft frowned upon for being a woman and because of that it’d been more than a year since she’d last seen Lord Eddard lop a man’s head off with his greatsword Ice. _A girl no longer,_ she reminded herself. Girls had better luck masquerading as boys. She was a woman now, whether she liked it or not. 

Even so, Thea shrugged. “Why not? I’ll come.”

They’d reached the Great Keep. Thea’s bedroom was on the other side. Robb lingered, his lips parted, looking as if he wanted to say more. “Thea. . .”

She didn’t give him the chance to finish. “I’ll see you at dawn.”

And she turned on her heel and walked away.

 

-

 

Even when the candles had burnt out, Thea had trouble sleeping.

She didn’t know since when she’d become so cool and wary with Robb Stark. He was her brother, her best friend, her. . .

_No. Best not to think of it._

She’d wanted to teach Bran how to shoot herself, so why had she been so lukewarm to Robb’s offer?

_The answer is obvious, isn’t it?_

Her life was a great disappointment. And no matter how much she dreamed of the impossible, dreamed of a home, her dreams would remain exactly that—impossible. Her dreams were dashed on the rocks of Pyke since the day Eddard Stark took her from her father’s home. 

 

-

 

She woke early before the sun had even rose in the sky. It was still dark, just how she liked it. The silence enveloped her and her footsteps were soft as silk in the darkness. The castle still slept. Thea headed directly to the stables, wondering if she was early because she saw no one else in sight. The morning was chilly and she drew her leathern cloak closely about her shoulders. She was feeding her horse some sugar cubes, waiting for her headache from last night to abate, when she felt Robb’s approach.

His arms were crossed and he was leaning against the doorway. She recognized his gait. Years of knowing him, growing up with him, hearing him run behind her to catch up had cast an indelible imprint of the sounds he made in her mind. She heard the subtleties too. The heaviness of his footfall, his lengthened stride. 

She greeted him with her characteristic smirk as she bent down to feed Smiler. “Good morning, Robb.”

“Good morning, Thea.” Her back was turned, but his deep timber sent shivers down her spine. She was glad she had Smiler to shield her from his watchful gaze.

“I wanted to ask you. . .” Robb sounded hesitant, uncertain. “But were you all right last night? You smelled of wine and seemed. . . tired. I didn’t ask you then because it seemed like you were in a bad mood.”

Thea turned and saw his ginger eyebrows knitted together in concern. She tried not to shudder again at the violent blueness of his eyes. _What is wrong with me? It’s the alcohol at it again._

“I’m always tired,” she said with an egregious smile. _Tired of disappointment. Tired of the world. Tired of drinking myself bloody insane._ “And I was in a bad mood last night. But I’m good now, good enough to see your father lop these men’s heads off this fine and pretty morning.”

“Just one man,” Robb corrected. She wanted to scandalize him with her irreverence for death, but his forehead just crinkled with more concern. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Thea laughed out loud. “Robb, since when am I the person to talk about _anything_?” 

Robb looked hurt. “We used to talk a lot.”

Thea sighed and tightened the stirrup on Smiler. _Would that I were a man. I’d be drinking with Robb, taking him out to fuck whores, swordfighting with no objection or disapproving glares from everyone else. And it’d be the most natural thing in the world._ Thinking on this, she realized this was exactly how she would have wanted to embark on adulthood with Robb. But she was limited by her sex.

Grey eyes met blue ones. “We’re talking now,” she said levelly. “We still talk. Because we’re friends. Companions. Playmates. And that’s what we do. Am I right, Robb boy?”

_Is that all we are?_

The unspoken question hung in the silence. Thea didn’t give him a chance to voice it out loud.

“Come. The men are waiting outside and we don’t want to miss them.”

 

-

 

They rode out at the break of dawn. Lord Stark regarded her coldly, but Thea only lowered her eyes in deference.

“We’re seeing a Night’s Watch deserter executed. Are you sure you can stomach the beheading?”

“Women can stomach the bloodiest of violence, my lord,” she replied with confidence. _It’s us after all who suffer the violence of childbirth and rape and pay the dearest for men’s crimes._

Lord Stark’s frown only deepened, and Thea did not press the matter. But she knew Lord Stark knew the truth of her words. And she knew it even better when he entrusted his greatsword Ice to her. Thea felt no surprise at this gesture. The honor of presenting the sword to the Lord of Winterfell in these instances was indeed hers. She was the highest born of their party and older than all of his children, but the deed usually circumvented her because she was a woman. But she knew this was a test from Ned Stark as well, to see if she could live up to her boastful words. The Valyrian steel was heavy at her side and she’d always preferred longswords to greatswords, but she had little difficulty carrying it while riding Smiler.

The morning was crisp and cold. Summer was coming to an end. Thea welcomed the oncoming winter. She’d known winter her whole life and the humid, sparkling weather had only served to mock her subdued demeanor. She didn’t know how the others would fare though. With the exception of the older generation and long-faced Jon Snow, the younger ones had never known pain.

They reached a holdfast in the hills, a block of black wood laid in the center. Thea had dressed in a skirt today to appease the reproachful men that surrounded her, but she did not ride pillion. She brought Smiler to a halt and swung off her horse.

A man, clad in the black cloak of the Night’s Watch, looking for all the world like a crow, was chained to the wall of the holdfast. Frost had bitten away at his body parts and his skin was peeling. He had a haunted look in his eye. _This one’s seen winter up close._

She watched the men cut the deserter down and brought him to the executioner’s block. Thea strode forward and brought Lord Stark the greatsword. The black suede covering slipped off to reveal rippling black steel. 

The deserter was rambling his last words. “But I saw what I saw. I saw the White Walkers. People need to know. If you can get word to my family, tell them I’m no coward. Tell them I’m sorry.”

They were oddly solemn and resolute for a madman. Lord Eddard nodded gravely, and the man rested his head on the black wood. “In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, first of his name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, by the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die.” 

He lifted Ice high above his head and in a metallic swoop, the deserter’s head came off his body. 

Thea watched transfixed, fascinated. The blood was dark red burgundy. _Almost like Dornish red. Like the thick red moon blood that comes out of me every month._ It was picturesque against the white snow and if Thea was an artist, she’d have wanted to paint the sight.

The head itself bounced off a thick root and came rolling at her feet. Blood still sprouted from its severed neck. Thea picked it up by the hair. The man’s eyes were glassy and dead. His cheeks were marred with poxmarks and frostbite, soft to the touch. _Is this how Maron and Rodrik looked when they died? No, I think not. More handsome._ A spontaneous chortle bubbled from her lips and she tossed the head away. 

They’d expected her to flinch away from the bloodshed, but she was hard as iron. With the exception of the war veterans, she’d seen the most violence out of all of them. She was familiar with it and she was cynical about it. She refused to think about how Robb was seeing her right now. Jon Snow muttered something under his breath, doubtlessly about her, but Thea just smirked and mounted her destrier.

She rode away from them all. She was the nearest to Winterfell, but she had to bring Smiler to a brake when the rest of the party stopped at the riverbank.

“What in the seven hells is _that_?” she exclaimed, dismounting.

“It’s a wolf,” Robb said.

Indeed, it was a wolf the size of a bear. “It’s a freak,” she murmured. “Look at the _size_ of it.”

Snow was quick as ever to correct. “It’s no freak. That’s a direwolf. They grow larger than the other kind.”  
“There’s not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years.”

“I see one now.”

The party quibbled over what to do with the pups. The boys wanted to keep them as pets.  

“Better sooner than later you killed them,” Thea suggested, placing a hand on her longsword. “More _humane_.” There was a touch of irony on the last word.

_Better to kill a creature than make it suffer longer in pain._

“Put away your sword, Thea,” Robb said. He sounded as commanding as Lord Stark, indeed as the lord he would one day become, but there was something thick in his voice too, as if he was pained to command her. “We will keep these pups.”

Robb’s command somehow rankled. “I take commands from your father, not you," she retorted.

She hadn’t even drawn her sword out. _The Drowned God take you,_ she thought darkly at Robb. She watched in detached amusement as Jon made his case to keep the pups to his father. _The bastard’s really a martyr, isn’t he?_

“There’s one more left.” Thea gestured to an albino pup with blood-red eyes. She raised an eyebrow at Jon. “Maybe you should take it. Fitting, isn’t it?”

She mounted her destrier. _And when am I getting my kraken?_

-

 

She’d expected a visit from Lady Catelyn for some days now. A little less than a week had passed since the deserter was executed. Reports of Thea presenting Lord Stark his sword had doubtlessly spread over Winterfell by now, and it was time for the woman who’d fostered her and served as her de facto mother to pronounce the folly of Thea’s action.

Lady Catelyn found Thea in her room, pondering a book set on her table. “Lady Thea, a word?”

Thea stood and curtseyed in deference to Lady Stark. “Of course, my lady.” She’d learned early on the value of manners when it came to her foster-mother and how far biting her lip to suppress a defiant retort and lowering her eyes in submission took her in the long run.

“I heard about you riding with the men to see the king’s justice done. I thought you were finished with joining the men in viewing such a spectacle.”

“Robb invited me.”

Catelyn pursed her lips. “Robb is a boy. He does not know what to do with a woman grown. He does not know our ways.”

Thea’s hands clenched over the arms of the chair in which she sat, but she bit her tongue. _I am not one of_ you _. I am a a girl of the Islands, I was supposed to be a sailor, a warrior, and a raider._ She only inclined her head stiffly. “I’ll forgo these ventures in the future, my lady.”

She knew that if she were truly a normal ward and not a bartering piece to check Balon Greyjoy’s tendencies for rebellion, there’d be talk of her marriage. She didn’t doubt Lady Stark had broached the topic with her husband, but in order to fulfill her purpose successfully she needed to stay at Winterfell and keep within the Starks’ sight. _For now_. It had been nigh ten years since her father had rebelled, but even now his membership in the Seven Kingdoms was testy and remained that of a thrall. Thea would most likely be married to one of the Starks’ loyal bannermen, a trustworthy man who would have no trouble delivering his wife to his lord in the event that Thea needed to have her throat cut.

Thea knew Lady Catelyn did not care about the breeches she wore, did not care that she practiced with the boys in the courtyard and spent her waking days shooting the longbow. Thea was expendable. Thea wasn’t Sansa and Arya. Thea wasn’t a Stark. _No matter how much Robb Stark deludes him to the otherwise._ The thought was a strand of insecurity. She’d been actively avoiding Robb in the last week, seeking refuge in the library and pouring over books and wondering if Asha would open her letters if she sealed them with the Stark emblem and sent them to the Islands by raven.

_To them, I am their thrall,_ Thea knew. Balon would never open letters with a direwolf rendered in grey wax on the envelope. She didn’t even bother with him.

Lady Catelyn nodded in approval. “That is good. There are certain places a lady should not go, certain things a lady should not see.” The red-haired woman paused and Thea tried not to raise a quizzical eyebrow. _Does she have more business with me?_ When Catelyn spoke, her voice was strained. “Do you know why Robb invited you?”

Thea’s shrug was transient, elegant. “A return to old times, I suppose.”

Catelyn’s expression visibly cooled. “I suppose he still thinks you his playmate.”

_Would that he did._ Thea remained silent.

But Catelyn Tully Stark was not stupid. Her gaze was even more watchful than Robb’s, and a deal more perceptive. She was cognizant of the subtlety that escaped her fast and energetic son, the hidden emotions that he easily missed, even if they shared the same Tully blue eyes. 

“I see the way he looks at you.”

All was silent in the room except Thea’s intake of breath. 

“He is a boy. He does not know any better.”

It was very hard not to release a graceless and sarcastic chuckle, thoroughly unfitting for a lady, but Thea’s face remained stony.

“But _you_ are a woman. You are older than him by years. You are a lady and you should know better. You had best started acting like it, Lady Greyjoy.”

Catelyn inclined her head politely at the girl and exited the room. When she opened the door to leave, she left it unclosed, and the draft that blew in was icy cold. _Winter is here in earnest,_ reflected Thea. Winter had snowed her consciousness since her childhood ended, but she realized now her prior life had just been a cold taste of what was to come.

 

-

 

Thea had no gods. To worship the Drowned God, you needed the sea, and she hadn’t seen the sea since the day she landed on the Stony Shore, fresh from war and a hostage of Winterfell. 

But Robb found her in the godswood, sitting cross-legged on the dirt and staring warily at the weeping face carved into the bleached white bark. He said her name and caused ripples in her solitude like a stone dropped in water.

“Thea.”

She turned, no surprise or distress on her face. Her eyes were grey, greyer than even his sister Arya’s, almost white in how they shone in the evening darkness. “Ah, I was wondering when you’d finally find me.”

Robb was contrite. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can leave if you want me to.”

She chose not to acknowledge his apology and instead patted the ground beside her. “Care to join me?”

_Just like old times._ He went to her, settling on the dirt beside her. When he spoke, there was a grin in his deep and throaty voice. “I didn’t know you worshiped the heart trees.”

She laughed half-scoffingly. “I don’t. But I was wondering if I could find something in them.”

She couldn’t though. The trees were elusive, intimidating, and unfamiliar. She asked them for answers about their wolfson, the heir of Winterfell, but they jealously guarded their secrets. _Winterfell is for the Starks only,_ a voice whispered inside her. _No outside intruders are allowed._

His touch was feather-light on her shoulder. Thea withheld a sigh. “What do they worship at Pyke?”

She blinked in surprise. He never took the initiative to ask her about Pyke, not since he was thirteen, and not until she’d mentioned the Islands first. 

“We worship the Drowned God.” He certainly did not miss that, the appellation of _we_. “The Drowned God battles with the Storm God, the sea with the sky. Babes are drowned when they’re first born so they may find the Drowned God’s watery halls upon death.”

“They’re _drowned_?” Robb looked terrified. “How can you do that to a baby?”

Thea chuckled. “Babes can swim. They spend nine months swimming in the womb, it’s no hardship at all for them to swim in the sea.”

Robb hesitated. “Were you. . . were you drowned?”

“I was.” _And yet it’s been nine years since I saw the sea._ “I hardly remember it though. I was a babe, after all.”

“Do you worship Him? The Drowned God?”

Thea felt tears sting her cheeks and was happy it was dark so that Robb didn’t see them. She tasted salt on her lips. “I try. Alas, it’s been too long since I’ve seen the sea. You cannot worship the Drowned God without treading the ocean.”

“Why are you crying?” His voice was tender as the spreading darkness.

_Damn you, Robb Stark._  

His hands came to her face, gently and hesitantly. When they were met with no resistance, he wiped her tears away. “Please don’t cry.”

That only quickened the tears and made her mouth bitter. She wanted to scream at him to leave and never come back, she wanted to charge him with every crime he’d unwittingly committed against her and condemn him for it, but most disturbingly she wanted to slip into the comfort of his arms and feel his hot mouth move against hers.

Instead, she pushed him away. And when she spoke, she was incredulous. “Why Robb? Why do you even _care_ if I cry or not?”

Even in the night she could discern the concern in his blue irises. “I only want you to be happy. You’re. . . you’re sad all the time, even if you hide it from everyone else with japes and fighting and whatnot.” He tenderly brushed away a dark tendril of hair from her face. “But you deserve much better.” His voice became more determined. “You deserve _happiness_.”

She wanted to burst into hysterical laughter. _And is the little lordling going to deliver that to me?_ But there was a touch of truth to it as well. Robb had been giving her happiness since she’d been brought to Winterfell against her will. And when his manner towards her did change, it was not to treat her with contempt and the awkwardness of the knowledge that she was a hostage. No. It was far worst than that. Far worst than what she’d imagined. 

“And why do you care about my happiness?” Her voice was as frosty as the late summer snows.

Robb was not provoked to fury, as she’d wanted him to be. Anger was easier to deal with; anger immediately put her on defense. Instead he got to one knee and held his hand in hers. It was warm and large, and in spite of herself her own hand curled around his, holding. _My anchor to this wintry green land,_ she thought, not without a tinge of bitterness. 

“You are my dearest friend. Only Jon can rival the affection I have for you, and even he falls short in that regard.”

Thea’s breath caught in her throat. He was stroking the inside of her palm now, strokes that made her entire body go cold in pleasure and anticipation.

“Please, Thea. . . Whatever is troubling you, tell me. Tell me so I can _help_ you.” 

She turned away from him, tearing away from his hold. “Girls like me were never meant to be happy.” Tears brimmed her eyes as she said it, almost as if she was realizing and finalizing this reality for herself for the first time, even if she’d always been subconsciously aware of it. But she maintained the same arrogant posture, the chinked armor that had gotten her through Winterfell not unscathed, but stronger than a weaker and more feeling girl. “That’s the way of things. It’s best you understood that, my lord.”

And she left him alone in the godswood in the cold of the late summer night, the heart tree’s weeping amber glare watching them both. 


End file.
